Saturday, September 8, 2012

Heart Shaped Sugar Cookies... FROM SCRATCH!

Well hello beautiful people! This year I decided to make something special for my friends for Valentine's Day. I know this is like "all late" but I think that this is a great recipe to do for any time of the year. I decided to write about my personal favorite cookies... Heart Shaped Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing ;) sounds yummy right??!!! You can always just get cookie cutters in different shapes depending on which time of the year you are in! I love baking cakes and cookies from scratch. In the old Mexican way. Not the American way where you just get your cake mix, eggs and voila! No no no.. this is the good stuff. Any who, let's get straight to the recipe :)

 Ingredients: 

 2 sticks of butter
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar
2 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp of cream of tarter
1 tsp of baking soda
1 egg

 Directions: 

In your Kitchen Aid fitted with the paddle attachement, whip together butter and powdered sugar. Add Flour, vanilla, cream of tarter, soda, and egg. On slow, stir together ingredients just until combined. Turn the dough out onto a floured board and wrap it with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Unwrap the dough and put it on a floured board. Be sure to flour the rolling pin, as well. Roll out dough until 1/4 inch thick. Cut shapes.
Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 6-8 minutes at 350 degrees just until the edges begin to turn brown - baking time will depend on size and thickness of the cookie.
Royal Icing

3 egg whites
 4 cups of powdered sugar

 In the Kitchen Aid fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until almost frothy. Add in the powdered sugar and whisk on slow until smooth. You may need to add more or less powdered sugar or water to achieve desired thickness. For sugar cookies, you want the icing to be thin enough that it will fall back on itself and smooth itself out, but not too thin so it will run off of the cookie.
Decorate them and... enjoy! ;) What I love about this recipe is that it's very easy and fast to make! It doesn't really take you that much time (unless you are baking like 100 cookies when I did last time!) You can always get creative and decorate your cookies with little designs and even put them in little plastic bags with ribbons and give them to your friends! It's the thought that matters;)

Love always,












Thursday, September 6, 2012

Why Baking?

Well hello there everybody. In this blog I will be posting delicious recipes that you can use and share with your loved ones:) I decided to write about baking recipes because whenever I'm sad or stressed out I just pull out a baking recipe and forget for a while about my troubles. Not to mention that my two little sisters love baking with me and of course eating everything I bake. Sometimes I don't even get a chance to taste my own cupcakes or brownies because whenever I feel like eating them they are all gone!!! Anywho, I hope you find this blog enjoyable and hopefully you can get some new ideas and surprise that special someone in that special occasion ;) Love always, Lani